This invention relates to a plant pot filling machine, and more particularly to an apparatus for continuously filling and preparing pots for receiving plants.
In the nursery business, plants are potted by initially filling each empty plant pot with a potting soil, then digging or drilling a hole in the center of the potting soil, inserting the trunk or stem of a plant into the hole, and tamping the soil around the plant. The above potting procedure is conducted manually or by machinery for large volume operations.
In a typical pot filling machine, an endless conveyor chain supporting a plurality of spaced pot receptacles or platforms carries the pots sequentially from a loading station to a filling station, a drilling station, and then an ejector station. The pots are loaded either manually or by conveyor. The pots are filled with potting soil from a hopper or conveyor, or manually. A hole is bored in the soil in the pot by a rotary drill, and the filled, drilled pot may be removed manually, or by various types of mechanical ejecting mechanisms. However, for the above described machine operation, the chain drive is indexed to move the pots to the various stations and then stop the motion of the pot until the operation at each station is complete. The total lapsed time for the stopping of the pots for each operation can amount to several hours a day. The lapsed time could be saved if the various potting operations could be carried out continuously.